Pictogram of the Tropes in “Faymous”

Image showing the rating for the tropes in Faymous. Roadtrip explorations, Magical shenanigans, and Music are about 90%, Riddles are about 75%, and Kissing is about 40%. At the bottom, there’s a “Vibes”, which has an image from the movie The Princess Bride.
Faymous by Jen and Éric Desmarais
Cover art by Pinkpiggy93
eBook
Paperback

Shotgun Wedding – JenEric Movie Review

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2022 film Shotgun Wedding.

Story

A classic “Die Hard” style story with a fighting couple that borders on enemy to lovers. The plot is simple and only complicated by bad decisions.

Score: 0.5

Characters

The cast is fabulous and the characters wonderfully flawed. I like that they had no combat training and survived by luck and a little skill.

They did make a lot of really foolish decisions, and at times it felt forced.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The dialogue is cheesy and fun with lots of quips. It is really frustrating how much of the dialogue happens where the bad guys should hear them.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The location was beautiful and the costuming was amazing and consistent. The camera work was good and steady.

The music was okay and did a good job of punctuating when the dialogue was dangerous and when it was just exposition.

Score: 1

Fun

It was a lot of fun to watch, even with the frustrations of poor character decisions.

Score: 1

Overall

A solidly written homage to Die Hard with a wedding twist. The characters have no idea what they’re doing in combat or love but by the end they find both.

Final Score: 3.5 Stars out of 5

The Selfish Reason I Go to Events

Hello Friends, Family, and Fans,

Jen and I do a lot of events. There are three reasons for doing it.

The first is money; the more we sell, the better it is for us financially (although most of the profits go back into books).

The second is getting our books out to more people. We want to share these worlds with you.

The third reason is (this is the selfish one) it helps energize us and excite us to write more. The combination of good conversation, excitement, and knowing that people care, is better than any other motivation.

Thank you for the motivation!

Éric

Shawna’s Google Search in Faymous

If Shawna had access to Google during Faymous, these might be some of her search terms.

Character’s Google Search: “Shawna Peaceblossom in Faymous” in the search bar reveals the following six results: “neon orange fox name”, “what can I eat in Fay”, “how to play chess”, “types of salamanders”, “common riddles”, and “what’s a Fay lord”. Under that and the cover in ebook and physical book form reads: “Get it here: jeneric-designs.ca/UBL-Faymous“. The image of Shawna from the cover is off to the right.

Faymous by Jen and Éric Desmarais
Cover art by Pinkpiggy93
eBook
Paperback

Rise of the Guardians – JenEric Movie Review

How This Works – Read Other Reviews

Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2012 film Rise of the Guardians.

Story

A fun twist on the reluctant hero story with a better lineup than the Avengers. The story is fresh while still using standard superhero tropes. The worldbuilding is amazing.

Score: 1

Characters

Each of the characters had unique feel and character motivations. The actors did a great job, really throwing themselves into it. Even with a larger cast there was a lot of character development for all of them except Sandy.

Score: 1

Dialogue

Very quippy, funny, and isn’t afraid of being serious at the same time.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The animation has aged fairly well, there are some lighting issues and a few less smooth sections but it’s still very pretty.

The music is phenomenal and worth listening to if you ever need to get pumped up.

Score: 1

Fun

I saw this in theatres and loved it. This was the kids’ first time and they were glued to the screen. Everyone had a great time.

Score: 1

Overall

A classic animated film that has more heart and goes way harder than it needed to. The acting, writing, and music make this a family favourite and an all around fun movie.

Final Score: 5 Stars out of 5*


*A 5 star review doesn’t mean the movie was perfect nor that it is perfect for everyone but it is a movie I believe is as close to perfect as possible.

Hockey Stick Make-over

Have you seen the McDonald’s hockey sticks? They’re super cute, but I’m not a fan of hockey IRL, so I decided to give mine a little revamp!
Just print out the PDF on sticker paper, cut it out, and stick it to your box. If you REALLY want to get fancy, you can paint the sticks to match the player’s. Note that Shane’s stick has his mom’s name at the top!
Update: McDonald’s Canada on Instagram commented “hi yes so this is everything” and now my year is complete.

I’m not overly thrilled about the colour of yellow on Ilya’s stick, but highlighter didn’t work and I didn’t have a brighter nail polish. I used black, white, and yellow nail polish to redesign the sticks, and black fine sharpie to write Yuna’s name. The font for the character’s last name is grabbed from the jerseys up in the Heated Rivalry gift shop, as are the numbers. The logos for the teams are from the enamel pins in the same place. The MLH logo is from the video game (with Ilya’s “face on the cover of the fu€king game”). I removed the backgrounds in Photopea. The pictures are screen grabs. The signature is a font that I felt embodied the character, and I made the decision of how they would sign their names. Everything was dropped into Canva, and then I downloaded images that I made into a PDF to keep the size right.

No AI was used at any point of the process.

Note that I used nail polish for my painting because I don’t have paint and it didn’t occur to me to ask my sister if she had the colours I needed.

A Study in Aether Re-Release Cover

Hello Readers!

Earlier this year, I regained the rights to the Elizabeth Investigates Series and the fine folks at River City Siren Press have agreed to re-publish them.

A Study in Aether will be coming out soon and we were lucky enough to get the amazing Pinkpiggy93 to do the new cover.

I’ll let you know when it’s available and I have to say I’m really excited about this cover.

What do you think?

Éric